Appearance The Government denounces that the cell phones of Pedro Sánchez and Margarita Robles have been intervened by Pegasus in an "external attack"
Pegasus The espionage to Sánchez and Robles, parallel to the crisis with Rabat and between denunciations of other countries against Morocco
The
Government
has confirmed for days that the cell phones of Pedro Sánchez and Margarita Robles were spied on a year ago through the Pegasus system, the same system with which the terminals of the independentistas were accessed.
This circumstance is the one that was handled in
La Moncloa
to keep calm in the face of the danger that governability in Congress would go to waste and it was his ace to deactivate the campaign and the blackmail of the nationalists due to the espionage of their leaders.
But the public communication of this espionage is rushing now, with Sánchez being the first acting head of government to acknowledge having been spied on by the Israeli Pegasus
software
, that is, acknowledging the vulnerability of national security.
The Executive decided to make these "intrusions" public this Monday, these "external attacks" on the terminals of the President of the Government and the Minister of Defense as an argument to discredit the attacks of his partners and put Sánchez in the same circumstance as a victim as who, such as the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, question his actions.
Match roles.
The Government now presents itself as being spied on, not just as a spy.
Sánchez's mobile suffered two intrusions in May 2021 that led to the theft of 2.6 gigabytes of information in the first and 130 megabytes in the second.
And that of Robles was intervened in June 2021, subtracting 9 megabytes of information.
This espionage through the Pegasus system was certified to the Government this weekend through two reports from the National Cryptologic Center (CCN-CERT), attached to the CNI.
Now the terminals of the rest of the members of the Government are being verified to see if there have been more intrusions.
Hence, in the midst of a clash with its nationalist partners and in the face of the danger that the Pegasus case would further complicate governability, the Government sent messages to the independence supporters that now make sense: the Government wanted the official secrets commission to be set up as soon as possible of the Congress so that the director of the CNI gave explanations;
he forced a maneuver in the House to change the majorities and give access to parties like Bildu, Junts or the CUP and speed up their constitution;
and summoned his partners because "everything will be clear from that commission."
Robles herself invited the Catalan nationalist formations so that in this commission of secrets «everything comes out, they can see the documentation and maybe many of those who now give lessons will have to shut up when they see the actions they have had».
Those actions were the espionage to her mobile and Sánchez's.
But if this announcement had been made in that secrets commission, it would not have been possible to know it publicly, because his assistants - the spokespersons for all the parliamentary groups - have an obligation not to reveal what is being discussed there.
Hence, La Moncloa has anticipated and made it public for all public opinion.
In La Moncloa they say they have no doubts and that it is verified that it is an "external attack", but they avoid pointing out culprits.
Although Pegasus espionage to different leaders has been investigated.
An investigation uncovered that Morocco had infected one of Emmanuel Macron's mobile phones with Pegasus, which, however, did not confirm the information;
Sánchez is the first head of government to recognize it.
He had his iPhone taken away from him a few days ago, when the espionage was found.
The dates of these "external attacks" coincide with moments of tension and conflict for the Government at the national and international levels.
On June 22, 2021, pardons were granted to the independence leaders of 1-O and on April 18, the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, landed in Spain, which unleashed a diplomatic conflict with Morocco that could only be suffocated a few years ago. weeks with the Government's turn on Spain's historical position on Western Sahara.
Government members, when they take office, are given an encrypted and theoretically hack-proof iPhone.
These terminals carry the COMSec application, developed by the company Indra and certified by the CCN.
This technology is a secure communications system that makes it possible to secure voice calls, video calls, instant messaging and files on any commercial mobile and through any IP network (3G, 4G, 5G, WiFi, LAN, satellite).
When the members of the Executive want to carry out any of these actions, they activate this application.
This technology, which is used by Ibex 35 companies in addition to the Government, allows, among other things, end-to-end encryption and is multi-platform (Android, iOS, Windows), with advanced usability comparable to the most popular instant messaging clients.
The Government, through the General Subdirectorate of the Budget and Economic Management Office, formalized in December 2021 the contract for expansion, support and maintenance of the COMSec secure communications system to Indra for 88,158.95 euros.
For all these reasons, it can be deduced that the mobiles spied on with Pegasus are those for personal use and not those used in matters related to the Government.
Of course, in the sector the high volume of information stolen from the President of the Government has been surprising because, in addition, the recommendation to the members of the Government is that they periodically empty their terminals.
This is why the information stolen from the Minister of Defense is so small, but not from Sánchez.
It is not the first time that a minister's cell phone has been hacked.
In August 2020, the Department of National Security of the Presidency of the Government and the CNI reported that the hacking of mobile phones of ministers and senior government officials was being investigated.
Among those affected was the then Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, but several senior officials received suspicious messages on their phones, the route through which Pegasus infects.
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